Re:Report sponsored by The Programmer's Guild
on
The H-1B Swindle
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· Score: 1
I greatly doubt that they ever will- after all, look who pays the money for campaign contributions (it's NOT the unemployed programmer who lost his job to an H-1b). I've personally been trying to attract attention to this by writing my congresscritters since October 2001- and it's gotten nowhere.
Re:Cheaper yes, but less skilled?
on
The H-1B Swindle
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· Score: 1
Of course, what's to stop Chinese virus writers attacking American IP blocks?
Absolutely nothing, which is why non-firewalled cross-border routers are a really bad idea.
Or to stop China invading America?
Nothing, because they already are- just look at who made 20 random products at Wal*Mart. There's no difference between an economic invasion and a military one, except the fact that the former is easier given our lack of defenses in that arena.
Unless you think that the fat, lazy, arrogant redneck American population can cope with the huge, highly-trained Chinese Army.
Actually I do- mechanized armies in the last 150 years have done very badly against armed civilian populations. After all, we're losing Iraq due to that.
Re:Cheaper yes, but less skilled?
on
The H-1B Swindle
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· Score: 1
If wages in America go down, then the cost of living in America will go down. Taking globalisation to its natural conclusion, eventually wages and costs of living across the world will equalise, and it'll be a level playing field.
Ah, yes, the Cobert Report Solution- turn the United States into a third world country so that the multinationals can exploit us as well.
Closing your borders and trying to prop up an artificial gradient of wages and costs of living is just delaying the inevitable.
Depends how many nukes you use to do it. After all, nobody said protectionism had to be PEACEFULL.
And if I hear one more person earning 70k cry poverty, I really am going to start shooting people.
I never got close to 70k- was earning 52k 7 years ago and am earning 32k today. Needless to say, since I have a family and bought a house, housing is now 75% of my take home pay.
Re:By the Constitution of the United States
on
The H-1B Swindle
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· Score: 1
OTOH, paying $10/hr for berry picking would significantly drive up the cost of berries, reducing the amount of the end product that consumers are going to buy so, while you have a few people paid attractive wages, you end up with far more unemployed Mexicans, consumers unable to afford berries and farmers closing up shop.
True- and I personally thing that would be a GOOD thing. If you can't stand paying the worker a fair price for his labor, you don't deserve to buy the product.
In a 'free market' you don't have artificial, government sanctioned price controls on goods and services. Having illegals pick your berries is a lot closer to a free market than having the government mandate that you pay $6/hr to have it done.
Which is why free markets are evil. Thanks for proving my point.
Re:Cheaper yes, but less skilled?
on
The H-1B Swindle
·
· Score: 1
I'm not sure why you used the word "allowed." Do you think you can stop it?
Given enough weaponry, and the use of the death penalty for traitorous CEOs, yes.
This globalist suggests you are in trouble if the work you do can be shipped overseas as 1/10th the wage. The only thing you can do as an individual is either switch careers or take a pay cut. It's the harsh truth. Another thing, and I'm not kidding here, is to invest in foreign index funds as a hedge!
Not everybody can invest- some individuals are prevented from investing already.
The big picture is that it helps the whole world when your job goes overseas, but that doesn't help those of us in America so affected. Here's what I suggest we do as a society if we wish to try to maintain our position as a global economic leader. We need to start providing cheap access to high quality education in America by spending a crapload of money on it as a society. Improve our schools by paying teachers more and at the same time making it easier to fire them when they stink. The benefits to us as a society would be enormous, economically, politically, and socially.
That would help- but it's not going to happen, because the CEOs and the Stock Market are hordeing money away from this purpose.
The Chinese and the Indians get it: education is where it's at. They laud their scientists and encourage their children to study hard. We make fun of ours and spend our time watching TV and worshipping the Britney Spears' of the world. It's just a matter of time before we start getting into trouble. If we don't get educated, we'll be making shoes for the Chinese pretty soon, metaphorically speaking.
Except it won't- because American employers have a tendency to take the increased profits from increased productivity and give the C-level executives bonuses and the stockholders dividends instead of sharing that money with the workers.
Thank you for the research, I didn't have time today, and my original was from an article similar to yours in an old 1970s Analog.
Re:By the Constitution of the United States
on
The H-1B Swindle
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· Score: 1
Who wants the jobs that illegals are working?
Anybody- once they're paid a competitive wage to do that job. That's what wage depression means. The free market is supposed to have this thing called "supply and demand" where the hourly wage rate will rise until those jobs are attractive once again. By allowing illegal workers, you raise the supply, causing the price point for demand to fall. By not allowing illegal workers, you lower the supply- causing the demand price point to rise.
All this really means is that there won't be any workers to EXPLOIT, not that there won't be any workers AT ALL. Offer $10/hr and your berry field will still get picked.
Well, long term survival anyway- short term survival is dictated by stock price vs headcount.
Re:Cheaper yes, but less skilled?
on
The H-1B Swindle
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Strictly speaking, a globalist would claim that this kind of situation is caused by the current lack of globalism, and any kind of resistance or protectionist measures are only increasingly more likely to cause conflict of this nature; i.e., delaying and complicating the problem rather than actually doing anything about it.
There's nothing anybody can do about it, was the claim above. What specifically to the globalists suggest we do about the same skillset being allowed a half a world away at 1/10th the wage? All I've ever heard is give up and spend another $40,000 to get another bachelor's degree in another area which will then be outsourced again.
Re:By the Constitution of the United States
on
The H-1B Swindle
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· Score: 1
Well, your original statement sounded as if they will be unconditionally denied any opportunity to stay in US _legally_ (through EBGC, for example).
I don't think anybody really knows- I know Lou Dobbs mentioned it on his program, and while against guest worker programs in general, seemed to be a bit confused on that point as well. Guess we'll have to wait and see if this passes Congress.
Not exactly. Once again, H1Bs are officially "dual-intent" visas.
Not anywhere in the law near as I can tell is this explicit- where the reforms proposed by the Bush Administration ARE- guest workers will NOT be allowed to proceed to permanent residency, they want to avoid the debacle that the 1986 Amnesty proved to be.
By design they assume the possibility that the worker might decide to immigrate.
That's not the way Congress understood them to be- nor is it explicit that they are dual intent in the law.
For example, a tourist might be denied a visa on the basis that he/she failed to convice the officer that he/she will come back home. An H1B applicant cannot be denied visa for such a reason.
Instead they just will require a bond to cover the cost of shipping the H-1b applicant home in the new proposal. And if it's not being enforced now, then I can only assume that the INS is perpetuating a fraud against the American people- because H and L class visas were SPECIFICALLY non-immigrant visas when they were passed originally.
Re:Report sponsored by The Programmer's Guild
on
The H-1B Swindle
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· Score: 1
It's not fraud if you can change the laws of the country to allow it, and/or get the politicians to order the bureaucracies not to enforce the laws.
Re:By the Constitution of the United States
on
The H-1B Swindle
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· Score: 1
Huh? You mean they are planning to send home people, who are here _legally_, who obey all laws and pay full-blown taxes?
If they exceed the stay of the term of their visas, they are not here legally, and they are not obeying "all laws". Or at least, that's the view of the Department of Homeland Security.
And at the same time they are not doing anything about the hordes of illegals in the US?
Nope- the same plan includes the new H5A visa, which retroactively gives them 6 years to work in the United States- and then ships them back to their country of origin.
This is not possible, even if we take into account the immense stupidity of the aforementioned Administration.
Well, actually it technically IS possible- but I'm not sure how many pwople would actually LIKE to live in the resulting country.
You probably misunderstood something.
Nope. You missed something in my original message: "At the end of their visas".
Legal guest workers will not be _sent_ home by anyone, unless they want to go home themselves.
True- but since the H- and L- class visas are "Guest Worker" visas, not intended to be a path to permanent residency, when those visas expire they become illegal aliens and have 21 days to either return home or be sent there.
This is going to be that way until I say otherwise.
If you don't like the reaction- then maybe what should be avoided is the action. Basic newtonian physics.
Re:By the Constitution of the United States
on
The H-1B Swindle
·
· Score: 1
Who wrote this 'constitution' ? Let's see...was it written by descendants of the western european settlers who defeated the native americans ?
True enough- and they forced it on my region of the country, Cascadia (my ancestors include both groups- native americans and western europeans).
Maybe the H1Bs should write a constitution, and declare that only H1Bs or their decscendants should be called Americans. The older immigrant groups are discriminating against the newer immigrants. If only these newer immigrants came with nuke backpacks, only then their constitution and rights would be respected.
Some of them are- but not on H-1b visas. Those enlist the help of MS-13 to come across the southern border.
nope. I had to go through that process when I switched from a J-1 to H1-B in 2002 and when hired as an H1-B in 2003. And my employment category is one of those that doesn't fall under the H1-B quota, so it's nothing to do with any of the additional visas.
Yes, but it was the law allowing the additional visas that required the extra paperwork- that's all been gone since the begining of FFY 2005.
Notice that I said nothing about how strictly this regulation is enforced, but I can tell you that it is there.
Not at all as near as I can tell- I've only known one company punished for breaking the rules, and the only rule they were punished for was not checking the "H-1b dependant" box when 99% of their employees were H-1bs (and they were actively interviewing Americans, but never hiring them). And even they were only fined $1000/employee- a piddling amount.
Re:By the Constitution of the United States
on
The H-1B Swindle
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· Score: 1
That's not what the congresscritters are describing it as: I've got at least 10 letters from Rep David Wu that I shouldn't worry about H-1bs because they're "non-immigrant guest workers" who "will be gone in six years". I of course pointed out several H-1bs I know who got green cards, but it fell of deaf ears. It's only this week that the Bush Administration started to figure out that this was happening, and promised to send all guest workers home at the end of their visas.
But what if the jobs aren't disposable? If a person makes himself invaluable within an organization, I wonder if he couldn't demand proper compensation regardless of his nationality.
Good luck- in the current job market that is no longer possible. EVERYBODY is replaceable according to HR.
While I'm sure there is some validity to the article, I do wonder whether the authors compared apples and oranges. What happens to an H1-B holder after a few years? He becomes a permanent resident.
While you are often correct- it's not supposed to be able to happen, and if the Bush Administration has their way, holding any H- or L- class visa will make you ineligible for a green card or any other permanent residency status, and you WILL be shipped home after 6 years.
I've got an easy answer to that- companies that trade globally for profit are traitors to the United States.
By the Constitution of the United States
on
The H-1B Swindle
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· Score: 2, Informative
An American is either a native, naturally born citizen or a naturalized immigrant. The H-1b visa is a "non-immigrant" visa, not intended for use by immigrants.
Not since 2004- and that law was only for the "additional" 100,000 visas/year. Even back then the Programmer's Guild, WashTech, ORTech, and other such groups had spreadsheets proving massive fraud in the system and a major lack of enforcement.
Re:It's an investment into your future
on
The H-1B Swindle
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· Score: 1
Why would anybody want to migrate to the land of high housing prices and slavery to Wal*Mart?
Re:Dude, it costs a lot to even HIRE them
on
The H-1B Swindle
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· Score: 1
A lot less than it used to- used to be $1600 just in filing fees, but that got slashed to $500 for FFY 2005. But it certainly doesn't account for a $13,000/year difference- especially when you figure that processing only comes around once every three years per worker.
Re:Cheaper yes, but less skilled?
on
The H-1B Swindle
·
· Score: 1
Depends on how far you want to go with the protectionism. I'm sure a set of viruses specifically attacking Indian and Chinese IP address blocks would work for a short time. And of course, there's always the option taken by populations who have found their livlihoods threatened: Invasion and war.
That last would be really interesting- the globalists usually claim that free markets prevent war rather than causing it!
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I greatly doubt that they ever will- after all, look who pays the money for campaign contributions (it's NOT the unemployed programmer who lost his job to an H-1b). I've personally been trying to attract attention to this by writing my congresscritters since October 2001- and it's gotten nowhere.
Of course, what's to stop Chinese virus writers attacking American IP blocks?
Absolutely nothing, which is why non-firewalled cross-border routers are a really bad idea.
Or to stop China invading America?
Nothing, because they already are- just look at who made 20 random products at Wal*Mart. There's no difference between an economic invasion and a military one, except the fact that the former is easier given our lack of defenses in that arena.
Unless you think that the fat, lazy, arrogant redneck American population can cope with the huge, highly-trained Chinese Army.
Actually I do- mechanized armies in the last 150 years have done very badly against armed civilian populations. After all, we're losing Iraq due to that.
If wages in America go down, then the cost of living in America will go down. Taking globalisation to its natural conclusion, eventually wages and costs of living across the world will equalise, and it'll be a level playing field.
Ah, yes, the Cobert Report Solution- turn the United States into a third world country so that the multinationals can exploit us as well.
Closing your borders and trying to prop up an artificial gradient of wages and costs of living is just delaying the inevitable.
Depends how many nukes you use to do it. After all, nobody said protectionism had to be PEACEFULL.
And if I hear one more person earning 70k cry poverty, I really am going to start shooting people.
I never got close to 70k- was earning 52k 7 years ago and am earning 32k today. Needless to say, since I have a family and bought a house, housing is now 75% of my take home pay.
OTOH, paying $10/hr for berry picking would significantly drive up the cost of berries, reducing the amount of the end product that consumers are going to buy so, while you have a few people paid attractive wages, you end up with far more unemployed Mexicans, consumers unable to afford berries and farmers closing up shop.
True- and I personally thing that would be a GOOD thing. If you can't stand paying the worker a fair price for his labor, you don't deserve to buy the product.
In a 'free market' you don't have artificial, government sanctioned price controls on goods and services. Having illegals pick your berries is a lot closer to a free market than having the government mandate that you pay $6/hr to have it done.
Which is why free markets are evil. Thanks for proving my point.
I'm not sure why you used the word "allowed." Do you think you can stop it?
Given enough weaponry, and the use of the death penalty for traitorous CEOs, yes.
This globalist suggests you are in trouble if the work you do can be shipped overseas as 1/10th the wage. The only thing you can do as an individual is either switch careers or take a pay cut. It's the harsh truth. Another thing, and I'm not kidding here, is to invest in foreign index funds as a hedge!
Not everybody can invest- some individuals are prevented from investing already.
The big picture is that it helps the whole world when your job goes overseas, but that doesn't help those of us in America so affected. Here's what I suggest we do as a society if we wish to try to maintain our position as a global economic leader. We need to start providing cheap access to high quality education in America by spending a crapload of money on it as a society. Improve our schools by paying teachers more and at the same time making it easier to fire them when they stink. The benefits to us as a society would be enormous, economically, politically, and socially.
That would help- but it's not going to happen, because the CEOs and the Stock Market are hordeing money away from this purpose.
The Chinese and the Indians get it: education is where it's at. They laud their scientists and encourage their children to study hard. We make fun of ours and spend our time watching TV and worshipping the Britney Spears' of the world. It's just a matter of time before we start getting into trouble. If we don't get educated, we'll be making shoes for the Chinese pretty soon, metaphorically speaking.
Actually, that's only one of three possibilities.
Except it won't- because American employers have a tendency to take the increased profits from increased productivity and give the C-level executives bonuses and the stockholders dividends instead of sharing that money with the workers.
Thank you for the research, I didn't have time today, and my original was from an article similar to yours in an old 1970s Analog.
Who wants the jobs that illegals are working?
Anybody- once they're paid a competitive wage to do that job. That's what wage depression means. The free market is supposed to have this thing called "supply and demand" where the hourly wage rate will rise until those jobs are attractive once again. By allowing illegal workers, you raise the supply, causing the price point for demand to fall. By not allowing illegal workers, you lower the supply- causing the demand price point to rise.
All this really means is that there won't be any workers to EXPLOIT, not that there won't be any workers AT ALL. Offer $10/hr and your berry field will still get picked.
Well, long term survival anyway- short term survival is dictated by stock price vs headcount.
Strictly speaking, a globalist would claim that this kind of situation is caused by the current lack of globalism, and any kind of resistance or protectionist measures are only increasingly more likely to cause conflict of this nature; i.e., delaying and complicating the problem rather than actually doing anything about it.
There's nothing anybody can do about it, was the claim above. What specifically to the globalists suggest we do about the same skillset being allowed a half a world away at 1/10th the wage? All I've ever heard is give up and spend another $40,000 to get another bachelor's degree in another area which will then be outsourced again.
Well, your original statement sounded as if they will be unconditionally denied any opportunity to stay in US _legally_ (through EBGC, for example).
I don't think anybody really knows- I know Lou Dobbs mentioned it on his program, and while against guest worker programs in general, seemed to be a bit confused on that point as well. Guess we'll have to wait and see if this passes Congress.
Not exactly. Once again, H1Bs are officially "dual-intent" visas.
Not anywhere in the law near as I can tell is this explicit- where the reforms proposed by the Bush Administration ARE- guest workers will NOT be allowed to proceed to permanent residency, they want to avoid the debacle that the 1986 Amnesty proved to be.
By design they assume the possibility that the worker might decide to immigrate.
That's not the way Congress understood them to be- nor is it explicit that they are dual intent in the law.
For example, a tourist might be denied a visa on the basis that he/she failed to convice the officer that he/she will come back home. An H1B applicant cannot be denied visa for such a reason.
Instead they just will require a bond to cover the cost of shipping the H-1b applicant home in the new proposal. And if it's not being enforced now, then I can only assume that the INS is perpetuating a fraud against the American people- because H and L class visas were SPECIFICALLY non-immigrant visas when they were passed originally.
It's not fraud if you can change the laws of the country to allow it, and/or get the politicians to order the bureaucracies not to enforce the laws.
Huh? You mean they are planning to send home people, who are here _legally_, who obey all laws and pay full-blown taxes?
If they exceed the stay of the term of their visas, they are not here legally, and they are not obeying "all laws". Or at least, that's the view of the Department of Homeland Security.
And at the same time they are not doing anything about the hordes of illegals in the US?
Nope- the same plan includes the new H5A visa, which retroactively gives them 6 years to work in the United States- and then ships them back to their country of origin.
This is not possible, even if we take into account the immense stupidity of the aforementioned Administration.
Well, actually it technically IS possible- but I'm not sure how many pwople would actually LIKE to live in the resulting country.
You probably misunderstood something.
Nope. You missed something in my original message: "At the end of their visas".
Legal guest workers will not be _sent_ home by anyone, unless they want to go home themselves.
True- but since the H- and L- class visas are "Guest Worker" visas, not intended to be a path to permanent residency, when those visas expire they become illegal aliens and have 21 days to either return home or be sent there.
This is going to be that way until I say otherwise.
DHS said otherwise last Friday.
If you don't like the reaction- then maybe what should be avoided is the action. Basic newtonian physics.
Who wrote this 'constitution' ? Let's see...was it written by descendants of the western european settlers who defeated the native americans ?
True enough- and they forced it on my region of the country, Cascadia (my ancestors include both groups- native americans and western europeans).
Maybe the H1Bs should write a constitution, and declare that only H1Bs or their decscendants should be called Americans. The older immigrant groups are discriminating against the newer immigrants. If only these newer immigrants came with nuke backpacks, only then their constitution and rights would be respected.
Some of them are- but not on H-1b visas. Those enlist the help of MS-13 to come across the southern border.
nope. I had to go through that process when I switched from a J-1 to H1-B in 2002 and when hired as an H1-B in 2003. And my employment category is one of those that doesn't fall under the H1-B quota, so it's nothing to do with any of the additional visas.
Yes, but it was the law allowing the additional visas that required the extra paperwork- that's all been gone since the begining of FFY 2005.
Notice that I said nothing about how strictly this regulation is enforced, but I can tell you that it is there.
Not at all as near as I can tell- I've only known one company punished for breaking the rules, and the only rule they were punished for was not checking the "H-1b dependant" box when 99% of their employees were H-1bs (and they were actively interviewing Americans, but never hiring them). And even they were only fined $1000/employee- a piddling amount.
That's not what the congresscritters are describing it as: I've got at least 10 letters from Rep David Wu that I shouldn't worry about H-1bs because they're "non-immigrant guest workers" who "will be gone in six years". I of course pointed out several H-1bs I know who got green cards, but it fell of deaf ears. It's only this week that the Bush Administration started to figure out that this was happening, and promised to send all guest workers home at the end of their visas.
But what if the jobs aren't disposable? If a person makes himself invaluable within an organization, I wonder if he couldn't demand proper compensation regardless of his nationality.
Good luck- in the current job market that is no longer possible. EVERYBODY is replaceable according to HR.
While I'm sure there is some validity to the article, I do wonder whether the authors compared apples and oranges. What happens to an H1-B holder after a few years? He becomes a permanent resident.
While you are often correct- it's not supposed to be able to happen, and if the Bush Administration has their way, holding any H- or L- class visa will make you ineligible for a green card or any other permanent residency status, and you WILL be shipped home after 6 years.
I've got an easy answer to that- companies that trade globally for profit are traitors to the United States.
An American is either a native, naturally born citizen or a naturalized immigrant. The H-1b visa is a "non-immigrant" visa, not intended for use by immigrants.
Not since 2004- and that law was only for the "additional" 100,000 visas/year. Even back then the Programmer's Guild, WashTech, ORTech, and other such groups had spreadsheets proving massive fraud in the system and a major lack of enforcement.
Why would anybody want to migrate to the land of high housing prices and slavery to Wal*Mart?
A lot less than it used to- used to be $1600 just in filing fees, but that got slashed to $500 for FFY 2005. But it certainly doesn't account for a $13,000/year difference- especially when you figure that processing only comes around once every three years per worker.
Depends on how far you want to go with the protectionism. I'm sure a set of viruses specifically attacking Indian and Chinese IP address blocks would work for a short time. And of course, there's always the option taken by populations who have found their livlihoods threatened: Invasion and war.
That last would be really interesting- the globalists usually claim that free markets prevent war rather than causing it!